Disability Insurance & Employee Benefits Lawyers

Why Should I Apply for Social Security Disability When I’m Receiving Long-term Disability Benefits?

Posted on
February 5th, 2014

ERISA long-term disability claims are often easier to win if the insurance company knows you’ve won a claim for Social Security Disability benefits. For one thing, Social Security has much stricter requirements to show “total disability.” Whereas, most long-term disability plans only require you to be disabled from your occupation, initially. When you win an SSDI claim, the insurance company realizes it will only need to pay part of your disability benefits, which may give the company greater incentive to accept the claim.

A second benefit is that if at any time your long-term disability (LTD) benefits are discontinued by the LTD carrier, you will have a second income generated by Social Security, and at some point you will be entitled to collect Medicare. You don’t have to be 65 to qualify for Medicare. Twenty-four months after your date of entitlement to SSDI benefits, you are eligible for Medicare benefits, which includes Part A (hospital benefits) and Part B (medical benefits). A variety of Medicare Advantage plans also are available to you.

Additionally, most LTD carriers will not offset any increases to your Social Security benefits when you receive an annual cost-of-living increase. Also, most LTD carriers will give you credit for he fees you pay your Social Security attorney.

Lastly, many long-term disability policies require that a person file a claim for Social Security disability if he or she might qualify, and if the person does not, the LTD carrier often can offset for the amount of Social Security benefits the person would have received if he or she had applied. On the other hand, if the person applies for Social Security and properly appeals, then most policies will not offset for benefits the person is not entitled to.

Getting Legal Help

The experienced disability team at Eric Buchanan & Associates has handled thousands of disability claims, and has many years of experience in disability insurance, ERISA long term disability and Social Security disability law. Give us a call today at 877-634-2506 or email us at info@buchanandisability.com to set up your appointment.